language
language - English
Pronunciation
- enPR: lăngʹgwĭj, IPA: /ˈlæŋɡwɪd͡ʒ/
- (General American, Canada) IPA: (see /æ/ raising) [ˈleɪŋɡwɪd͡ʒ]
- Hyphenation: lan‧guage
Noun
language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)
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The English Wiktionary uses the English language to define words from all of the world's languages. This person is saying "hello" in American sign language. |
- (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
- The English language and the German language are related.
- Deaf and mute people communicate using languages like ASL.
- (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.
- the gift of language
- (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
- legal language; the language of chemistry
- (countable, uncountable, figurative) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.
- body language; the language of the eyes
- (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
- (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
- (uncountable) Manner of expression.
- (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.
- The language used in the law does not permit any other interpretation.
- The language he used to talk to me was obscene.
- (uncountable) Profanity.
Synonyms
- (form of communication): see language
- (vocabulary of a particular field): see jargon
- (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
- (particular words used): see wording
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
- See en:Languages
linguistics: Hyponyms of language (kinds)
- artificial language
- auxiliary language
- bad language
- body language
- common language
- computer/computing language
- constructed language
- corpus language
- dead language
- endangered language
- engineered language
- everyday language
- experimental language
- extinct language
- foreign language
- formal language
- foul language
- global language
- hardware description language
- indigenous language
- international language
- link language
- literary language
- living language
- logical language
- machine language
- main language
- mathematical language
- meta language
- metaphorical language
- minority language
- modern language
- multi-paradigm language
- natural language
- object language
- pattern language
- philosophical language
- phonetic language
- planned language
- principal language
- private language
- programming language
- scripting language
- secular language
- sign language
- spoken language
- standard language
- subject-oriented language
- target language
- universal language
- vehicular language
- vernacular language
- working language
- world language
linguistics: Hyponyms of language (types)
- active-stative language
- agglutinative language
- analytic language
- direct-inverse language
- E-language
- ergative-absolutive language
- I-language
- isolating language
- nominative-accusative language
- oligosynthetic language
- OV language
- polysynthetic language
- synthetic language
- tripartite language
- VO language
Derived terms
- A language
- AB language
- abstract language
- aspect-oriented language
- aspect-oriented programming language
- assembly language
- B language
- C language
- child language
- class-based language
- classical language
- clean language
- community language
- Community language
- conditional assembly language
- contact language
- context-free language
- curly-brace language
- curly-braces language
- curly-bracket language
- daughter language
- delegation language
- domain-specific language
- dynamic language
- e-language learning
- English-language
- esoteric programming language
- expressive language
- first language
- German-language
- ghost language
- good language
- heritage language
- high-level language
- home language
- imperative language
- indexing language
- interlanguage
- intermediate language
- international auxiliary language
- Iranian language
- Iranic language
- killer language
- language area
- language arts
- language assimilation
- language assistant
- language barrier
- language code
- language contact
- language continuum
- language cop
- language death
- language ecology
- language exchange
- language extinction
- language family
- language game
- language island
- language isolate
- language lab
- language laboratory
- language model
- language nest
- language of education
- language of flowers
- language planning
- language police
- language pollution
- language processing
- language replacement
- language school
- language shift
- language swap
- language technology
- language transfer
- language-agnostic
- language-independent
- languaging
- large language model
- link-language
- lip language
- liturgical language
- loaded language
- logical language
- love language
- low-level language
- macro language
- markup language
- matrix language
- mind one's language
- mini-language
- mixed language
- moon language
- mother language
- native language
- natural language processing
- natural language understanding
- null-subject language
- object-based language
- object-oriented language
- official language
- Oïl language
- pandanus language
- parent language
- people-first language
- Polish-language
- private language argument
- private language problem
- private language thesis
- pro-drop language
- proto-language
- prototype-based language
- query language
- receptive language
- reconstructed language
- regular language
- role-oriented language
- Romance language
- second language
- sleeping language
- source language
- speak someone's language
- speak the same language
- specific language impairment
- static language
- statically-typed language
- strong language
- style sheet language
- Sydney language
- symbolic language
- systems language
- Turkish-language
- unparliamentary language
- ur-language
- village sign language
- visual language
- visual programming language
- watch one's language
- Western Desert language
- whole language
- wooden language
Related terms
Translations
Verb
language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)
- (rare, now nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.
Interjection
language
- An admonishment said in response to vulgar language.
- You're a pile of shit! Hey! Language!
Noun
language (plural languages)
language - French
Noun
language m (plural languages)
- Archaic spelling of langage.
language - Middle English
Noun
language (plural languages)
- Alternative form of langage
language - Middle French
Alternative forms
Noun
language m (plural languages)
- language (style of communicating)
Related terms
Descendants
- French: langage (see there for further descendants)
language - Old French
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- (archaic) IPA: /lenˈɡwad͡ʒə/
- (classical) IPA: /lanˈɡad͡ʒə/
- (late) IPA: /lanˈɡaʒə/
Noun
language f (oblique plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)
- language (style of communicating)
Related terms
Descendants
- Bourguignon: langaige
- Middle French: language, langage, langaige, languaige
- French: langage (see there for further descendants)
Borrowings: (some possibly from O.Occitan lenguatge instead)